A Few Photos to Share

To compensate for the last couple of blogs without pictures, I thought I'd post a few from the last few weeks:

My favorite flowers!

Looking down at Magdalena.

Looking up at Magdalena. (It involved climbing to go anywhere!)

Nuestra familia en Magdalena! (Our host dad, Lizbeth, Estella, Anna, Leslie, and Me)
Every day Estella, our mom, would tell me "Cuidado!" as I went down the stairs - it appears my clumsiness is universal. Our host sisters, and dad, really liked to play Uno. Estella usually won. 

This is Hermano Pedro, the place I worked at during our time in Magdalena. We bussed (scary, I know) down to Antigua everyday to work with the people there. It is an experience that I will never forget and I can't wait to go back next week! 

Volcano - Agua 

The view from outside my room here in Antigua

I still can't believe I live here! 

The other volcanoes/mountains. They're everywhere! So great! 

We went out to eat (at an Italian restaurant) and there was an orange tree growing. It was a really great night with almost the whole group. And, of course, we got ice cream afterwards.  Credit to Rachel Forker for taking the artsy picture that I couldn't obtain. 

This is a convent that we visited. It is in Antigua. It's called Cappuchinas (I think) . It was huge! And absolutely beautiful, however, it was also really tragic to see the differences in the structures created for the Spanish and the structures for the Indigenous monks. Everything was designed with a purpose and, usually, the spaces designed for the Indigenous were meant to keep them reminded of their inferiority. The worst part is, it is still really easy to see this idea of racism in the current society. It's incredibly blatant sometimes. 

At Capuchinas

At Capuchinas

!Un jardín increíble! 

This is really cool. These next couple of pictures are of  a velación. I think the rough translation for that is a vigil.  Guatemala is a primarily Catholic country, thus, Lent is very important. In preparation for Semana Santa (Holy Week), during the season of Lent, each church puts out a new velación each Friday. It's hard to tell from these pictures, but they're huge. They're taking up the entire altar space at the front of the church. I've been to three thus far and it's incredible because they're all so different depending on the church and the portion of the city putting them up. People will crowd around (I feel incredibly gigantic in these moments) pushing and waiting their turn to get to the front where the alfombra is visible. Below each of these incredible displays is a "rug" made of flowers or sawdust and fruit that displays some portion of the specific verse they are trying to convey. It's really beautiful and fun to visit! 

Different velación, depicting Job

Okay, so this is a small portion of what it looks like outside the church. At each velación, there is a little fair set up outside (there were even little rides at this one!) with food and knick-knacks and lots and lots of people. We made sure to try the churros. 

This is a coffee plantation - una finca - located just outside of Antigua. It was amazing to see the incredibly long process. In a year, one coffee plant produces one pound of coffee - or 24 cups. It's even less for espresso. We got to see all of the processes and the coffee drying out and taste some espresso. It was a fun trip. 

Last weekend, we went to the beach at Monte Rico (which I always wanted to call Monte Cristo - like the book). This is Flat-Samuel and I at the Pacific Ocean. We spent the majority of two days at this spot right here, swimming and hanging out it the sand. My shoulders payed for it in burn, but it was definitely worth it! 

Sunset. At the beach. No big deal. 

We released born-today turtles into the sea! They're so tiny! 

This was taken at a sunrise tour we did of the Mangroves in Monte Rico. At 5:30 am we walked down to the river and climbed into a boat with a guide who pushed us with a very long stick through the mangroves to see the dawning of the sun. (Picture a Guatemalan gondola and you've probably got it right.) It was really incredible. Muchos pajarros!